


Where Do Dreams Go?

by nitamar



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 03:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nitamar/pseuds/nitamar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor finds the hope in his most depressed state.<br/>Merry Christmas!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Do Dreams Go?

The Doctor didn't know how much time had passed. as he sat there in his castle on the cloud, staring at the hole in his hearts, remembering Amy and Rory, denying the absence of them, engulfed in a blackhole of self-loathe and welcoming the depression and loneliness.Sometimes he would just stop in the middle of whatever he's doing, not moving, looking at the spot in the console but not really looking, for a long time that might be hours, or maybe years, decades.

He missed them.

He missed them because he was not ready for them to go yet. Not one bit. He had rejected the thought of them leaving him with such effort, and with such success. They had been in his life for so long he had built an illusion of safety. And one second he was so relieved, so so relieved that that thing he didn't even let form in his mind was not happening after all, and the next...

The Doctor couldn't bring his brain to recall any of the things that happened after that happy moment. But his brain always involuntarily went down the lane. So his mind was constantly in a blur, with noises, and figures moving, but nothing comes into focus. Only hollow pain.

It felt like regenating, the feeling that everything that is you is melting, every cell shredded into pieces, back to its original form of photons and stardust. Only he wasn't regenerating, so the pain never stopped suddenly, after a prolonged process, but kept going on, and on, and on, into forever.

One day he threw a tantrum so big that he destroyed half of the control room, because he despised everything he saw, hated every memory flashes wherever he laid his eyes. He must had passed out, or simply shut down after exhausting himself. When he woke up again, the TARDIS had regenerated. She always knows what he wants, and how he feels. For that he is forever grateful.

That night, or the next night on the TARDIS anyway, he looked at the new no longer cheerfully golden but dark and calm interior and thought long and hard about regenerating himself. He'd start anew. Like he had done so many times before. He had faked a regeneration, been given regeneration energy, used his regeneration so many times with this body maybe he had pushed his luck too far after all. But something in his hearts was always rejecting the idea. Reluctant. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Hope. This word came to his mind as if someone had put it inside it. after the top of the console had rotated for the 1342nd time. Maybe that was Sexy's way of forcing him to keep track of time.

Theta felt something, something warm and fierce rising in his chest despite himself. "Hope. But what for?" He asked in frustration. His voice echoed, a little too loudly, in the vast time machine. "What hope do I have left?" He shouted, as if there's someone there and if he shouted loud enough that person was going to shout back.

And another word came up in his mind.

Rory.

Really?

The Doctor said to himself, in his head. The word was so delicate he might break it if he said it out loud.

He had thought about it. Of course he had. But...

Why hadn't he thought of that before?

"Are you sure?" He asked the TARDIS, only the sound of his breathing was heard. And he heard she whispering back, like she's smiling, like she's so happy, 

"Yes".

There is a little boy called Rory Williams. One day he is going to be great. He is going to be amazing. He will grow up to be a guardian of the pandorica for two thossand years, a man who stands against all the evil forces in the universe in search of his wife, the human who will defeat death itself again and again, a nurse. But he is going to need a lot of hope as he grows up. Because right now he is only Rory. A boy madly in love with a red-hair girl. A boy who is invisible, who is left with his eyes covered but the friends he's supposed to be playing with has already gone off without him, who is bullied by his classmates and who's tiny frame makes him a laughing stoke at PE classes.

"Oh Rory. One day you will step into the TARDIS and you will look so calm, even a little unimpressed. So don't cry yourself to sleep again. Promise? Oh you won't hear me Rory. But you can hear me. I know. Because you will turn out fine. Don't you dare not be Rory. Because the days we had...They were the best. And you are not changing that. Not even you, yes not even you, Rory." The Doctor pranced about in the boy's bedroom, safe in the knowledge that he was nothing but a dream presence to the boy. Some days he would talk to Rory about history, about the fallen of the Roman empire, about Hitler, about Byzantium. Some days he would tell the sleeping boy about physics, about relative dimentions and frozen black hole. Some days, he would just look at his sleeping form, young and peaceful. One day he would ban him from his bedroom. But he never meant to...interrupt. He just liked to see him sleep - the man older than he looked - and wonder if himself looks like this when he sleeps. All peaceful, no sign of the haunting dreams, of the screams, of all the traces left behind by the many lives he's lived.

And that day when he stepped out of his TARDIS, he noticed something different. He automatically flung out his sonic screwdriver and was about to wave it about when he realized.

Fairy lights were dancing on a small tree in the corner of the room. And at the foot of the bed a single sock was hanging. The Doctor smiled to himself. Rory, always so pratical, you'd think he's the child that had dismissed Santa's existence. But in his little heart he yearns for romance and adventure. He knew it. He always knew. "Is it Christmas eve?" He asked the TARDIS. He looked everywhere in his pocket. "AH!" He exclaimed happily. In his hand he helds the model of a Jaguar E-Type. "Where did you come from?" he says to the little red thing. "Nevermind. You are perfect." He stuffs the model car into the stocking. "Will give you a real one when you are older." He promised. "Merry Christmas, Rory."


End file.
